Sunday, 1 December 2013

Soft Porn Sunday: C.C. Costigan & Brian Heidik

It occurred to me recently that it's possible to download soft porn without paying for it - even full movies. After all, that's what I did with Emmanuelle in Space. This may not be so much of an ethical pickle as it seems when you consider a lot of these films have both been shown on UK TV before and are unavailable any other way. Such is the case with The Exotic Time Machine, something I downloaded shortly before discovering the overdub is in Italian. Hmmm.Anyway, this one - The Regina Pierce Affair - interested me for a few reasons. First of all, I haven't seen it before. Second, it's meant to be one of the best ones. The third - and crucial - reason,

Lots of money, but a real dickhead.

however, was that it stars two actors I haven't seen for a while: C.C. Costigan, who I've only seen in one thing before and I can't remember what that is, and Brian Heidik (credited here as Chris Hayden). He's the guy who plays Robin Hood in Virgins of Sherwood Forest (although he's credited there as Dave Roth), and also won "Survivor Thailand". Here, he's the central character and shows that he's actually capable of acting, which kind of helps, actually.

The film is actually a crime film about an art heist à la Trance, although the title tips its hat to The Thomas Crown Affair. The title isn't really important anyway, because it's one of the main characters' names with a suggestive word after it, but I thought it was an interesting point.Appearance: The Regina Pierce Affair (2001)Characters: Regina Pierce & Detective Dan

It was difficult for me to pick a scene here, actually, as there are relatively few and they're all both hot

Grand piano!

and distracting in equal measure. Most of the scenes actually feature two relatively minor characters - Andrew (Vince Calladi - no, I don't know either) and Marie (Amber Newman again!) - who bear very little relevance to the plot, apart from their rôle in the dénouement. Used as a framing device here is the idea that multimillionaire heiress Regina Pierce (Costigan) likes to watch, and that she's letting struggling actor Andrew and his girlfriend stay in her massive house on the condition that she can sit and watch them shag. At one point, this is watched itself.

So what I'm actually doing is watching somebody watching somebody watching a couple shagging. Marvellous.The main characters are Detectives Dan (Heidik/Hayden/Roth) and Julie (Holly Sampson again!), who are trying to solve an art heist case in which Regina Pierce is a prime suspect. Julie, as you'd expect from any character played by Holly Sampson, gets to have sex at least once with her boyfriend Jesus Troy, while Dan watches some absolutely terrible lesbian soft porn at one point. He also has sex twice with Regina, and since the first time this happened I quite liked it, here's the scene!Okay. So: context. She's a suspect. He's a policeman. Of course they're going to have sex. But they

Okay, who left that banana skin there?

don't actually do so until one hour and four minutes of the film have gone past, and C.C. Costigan is hot, so big respect for Dan's resolve, especially as she does things such as kiss him, call him up wearing nothing except negligée and masturbate to thoughts of him, and tell him that she wants to have sex, although strangely only this last one is what breaks his resolve. In any case, they end up having sex for no reason. He's, essentially, trying to work on the case from the inside... although maybe the inside of her vagina wasn't planned. Whatever.I have to point out that I really like The Regina Pierce Affair's set pieces. It's all filmed pretty well, was made in Hollywood (yes, really) and Regina's mansion, in which this scene is set, looks believably plush. In their courtship which consists mostly of kissing and disrobing on the way to the bedroom, we get to see hallway, stairs, landing, balcony and lounge before bedroom occurs, and they all seem nice. The bed they eventually fall onto also looks soft and comfortable. In fact, I want to sleep there. Like, now. Right now.

He does this face a lot.

This is a really long scene - by far one of the longest I've seen - and the first six minutes - SIX! - don't contain any real sex. There's a bit of oral sex around the 6:11 mark, and this continues for at least another minute and a half before we finally mix to some sex. Yes, I do find this a little boring in parts, but there's something fairly entertaining about all this. It must be difficult to simulate oral sex, and yet the faces made by both Heidik and Costigan respectively are pretty convincing. And they do both have lovely smiles.The sex is good, too: we get Regina riding Dan in the astride position, and it's quite smooth, confident riding - not too hard, not too soft - with a lovely smile again. This mixes, after a while to Dan kneeling from behind and supporting her during sex (another soft porn staple and not easy to keep balance), with a very good decision made: close-up. On their faces, which cuts out her boobs and his chest (both of which are finely shaped), but it shows their facial acting skills. And she's very pretty.This then changes to doggie style, which I knew was coming at some point, so it's almost gratifying to see it happening - and I particularly like the bit when Regina flips her hair back and it hits Dan in the face! Nicely done, movie! In fact, this is the best bit of the sex; they appear to be laughing, rather than moaning. It's light, bright, happy, frisky sex, as opposed to the dark, broody stuff in the rest of the film so far, and there's no implied orgasm shot, either. We mix to an after-sex kissing session, clothes on the floor, before the scene ends - allowing a little space for the audience to imagine what we didn't see happening. Again, nicely done.For a scene which contains less sex than disrobing, there's quite a lot to notice. Costigan keeps

I swear that picture's from IKEA.

certain items of clothing on (a gold necklace and her shows) all the way through, even during sex, underlining the idea that Regina is spoiled and rich, and can afford these things. Heidik is always good value, and he actually gets to act in this film, which helps - this is one of his best sex scenes, too, and you can almost pinpoint the bit where Dan "forgets" about his professional values. It's a slow start, granted, but it's quite a fun scene, and it turns out to be pivotal to the plot (the other scenes aren't).However, one thing I'm totally unsure about: the music. It's ludicrous. Most of the sex scenes in this film are, and I don't know whose idea this was but it doesn't work, overlaid with actual songs with lyrics. A quick Google search reveals nothing, so I'm assuming they are original songs. In this scene, we get a solo played on a telephone keypad (Jay Foreman's already done that!) and a male voice doing a voice which is unmistakably a dog panting. Yes, really. It's offputting, frankly, and that doesn't help. But, having said that... this is an incredibly infectious song.Don't understand? Neither do I. Really don't understand. The singer isn't even credited and it's actually not that good a song. In any way possible. It's not very good and IT'S IN MY HEAD! AND IT WON'T LEEEEEEAVE! Don't believe me? Fine. I've actually taken a recording and put it up here for you to listen to yourself. All ten minutes of it. And now tell me it's not in your head too.